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Chronic Illness

Takes Many Forms

If you have been struggling with adjusting to your abilities - physical, mental, emotional or spiritual, Dr. Dilley can guide you with working through your feelings, processing your grief, redefining your goals, and building a stronger sense of self.

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Chronic Pain

  • Back Pain

  • Post-Surgical Pain Syndrome

  • Neuropathic Pain (CRPS, Neuropathy, Central Pain Syndrome)

Functional Illnesses

  • FND/FMD/PNES

  • Fibromyalgia

  • IBS/IBD

  • Migraines and headache

  • Chronic Fatigue (ME/CFS)

  • Chronic Pelvic Pain

  • TMJ/TMD

Immune and Autoimmune Disorders

  • Lupus

  • Type I Diabetes

  • HIV/AIDS

  • IBD/IBS

  • Asthma

  • Rheumatoid Arthritis

  • Multiple Sclerosis

Gastrointestinal Disorders

  • GI Functional and Motility Disorders

  • GERD

  • Diverticulitis

  • IBD

  • Celiac Disease

  • Centrally Mediated Abdominal Pain Syndrome

Adaptive

  • Spinal Cord Injuries

  • Accessibility issues

Other systems

  • Heart and Lung Disease

  • Stroke and Neuroplasticity

  • Muscle Tension

  • Osteoporosis

Benefits of expressive art therapy

Facilitates Emotional Reasoning:

Trauma and stress can happen to anyone, especially those with medical illnesses. This trauma may lead to helplessness, fear and hopelessness. Expressive art therapy can help you externalize and process these unpleasant emotions, reduce the intensity of the trauma and how you experience it.

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Activates the Brain's Healing Pathways:

The creative process stimulates brain areas associated with emotion, memory and self reflection, promoting neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to form new neural pathways, which is crucial for healing emotional wounds.

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Reduces the Negative Impact On the Brain:

Chronic stress and constantly being on guard can have detrimental impacts on brain structures such as the amygdala and the hippocampus, as well as decrease the functioning of the frontal lobe. Expressive art therapy can calm the nervous system and allow the other brain structures to activate more optimally, allowing you to think more clearly, feel safer, and spend less energy scanning for "dangers".

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Strengthens the Mind-Body Connection:

Feeling disconnected from your body is often a survival skill to cope with intense events and feelings and creating art can help to reconnect the body, mind and soul. Through the reconnection, you may feel more in control, be able to express unspoken feelings, and let go of physical symptoms.

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Through these biological changes, you can reframe your trauma narrative.

Phone: 765-204-5854

1330 Win Hentschel Blvd, Ste 234
West Lafayette IN 47906

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©2025 by Dawn S Dilley, PhD HSPP

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